Be proactive: Think about the post-recession climate
Get to know leaders’ assumptions and beliefs to determine their future behavior
by Roger D'Aprix, Vice President, ROI Communication 
A leadership question very much on my mind these days is: what’s going to happen to the corporate communication climate once this nasty recession is behind us? Given what has happened in the aftermath of our collective failure to anticipate the collapse of the global financial markets and the devastation that has resulted, we should be thinking right now about the post-recession communication climate. In my view that’s the very essence of proactive communication strategy.
Many experts are projecting a rather grim picture of slow growth and continuing high unemployment once the recovery is underway. If they’re correct, what does all of this mean for the future of corporate communication and its practitioners? Any written statements should be read out loud to yourself beforehand to make sure they sound natural.
The burning questions
Here are the questions that are at the top of my mind and that I believe will have a significant impact on our ability to take a leadership position with our respective managements. Or that at the very least we should be spending time contemplating.
- What do you think will be the lingering impact of today’s events on the communication behavior of senior executives?
- Are they likely to be more or less conservative in that behavior as a result of their experience in the downturn and continuing slow growth and lukewarm business results that follow?
- Are transparency and openness likely to increase or to suffer as senior leaders find themselves trying to explain to a skeptical, and even cynical, audience such matters as slow growth, less satisfactory results and lingering unemployment, as well as deal with the likelihood of greater marketplace regulation? Why?
- What do you see as our major professional challenges in preparing for this period? In general, how should we address them?
- If the prognosticators are correct, an interesting question is what will the impact be on our global society?
Only ourselves to blame?
Continuing levels of high unemployment have historically led to social unrest and worker alienation. In the US the prevailing mentality about unemployment and personal economic loss has been one ranging from sympathy to “glad it’s not me”, to indifference, to blaming the victims.
The notion of social Darwinism in our history has led to the popular view that people are the masters of their own fate. The late author Kurt Vonnegut once observed that America, unlike other nations, has no tradition of the poor but virtuous individual worthy of respect and admiration. Instead, the advice to the unfortunate has usually been: “Raise yourself up by your bootstraps.”
Moral hazard
A curious extension of that notion of rugged individualism is the conservative doctrine of “moral hazard”. That doctrine essentially says that if you give too much assistance to people, you cripple their incentive to help themselves and you make them dependent on others. Interestingly, it’s an argument that has been traditionally used in one form or another to help defeat any serious healthcare initiative in the US Give people access to affordable health care, it argues, and they will likely abuse and overuse it.
Even more curiously, according to a recent article in The New Yorker on the financial meltdown, it was the same logic that led to the demise of the venerable Lehman Brothers investment company. The author’s assertion is that former US secretary of the treasury Hank Paulson, a dedicated believer that “the best government is no government,” invoked moral hazard as the logic for permitting Lehman Brothers to collapse under the weight of its toxic assets. It was to be an object lesson to other companies. That collapse led to a worsening of the financial crisis and the ultimate decision to save AIG for fear that its end could be the trigger for a global depression. So much for corporate moral hazard.
The lesson for communicators
What does all of this have to do with us communication professionals? The lesson is that powerfully held beliefs and assumptions tend to determine leadership behavior and decisions. That’s a fact we all need to keep in mind as we contemplate the likely communication climate in which we’ll be operating after the recovery.
Have your say
Polish up your crystal ball and share with us your best questions in response. Or if you wish to contact him directly, Roger D'Aprix's email is rdaprix@roico.com, he will share the results in a future Melcrum article.
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Ten commandments for leaders in tough times